Tabora was sent to overtake Oñate; others went to warn the padres at their different stations, while the rest bore the sad tidings back to San Juan.2

23

The scene in camp when the disaster was announced to the wives, children, and friends of the slaughtered company may be left to the imagination of the reader. Solemn funeral rites for the dead were hardly completed when Tabora returned, saying that he had not been able to find the governor; whereupon Alférez Casas with three companions volunteered for the service; and after many difficulties met Oñate beyond Acoma, near where Villagrá had been succored a month before. The adelantado retired to his tent and spent the night in prayer before a rude cross, if we may believe his eulogist, and in the morning made a speech of consolation to his men. Having with the least possible delay called in the several bands of explorers, he marched his army carefully and sadly back to San Juan, where his safe arrival on December 21st was celebrated by a te deum.

Formal proceedings were now instituted before Juan Gutierrez Bocanegra, appointed alcalde for the occasion, against the rebels; and after the friars had given a written opinion respecting the elements of a just war and the rights of victors over a vanquished people, it was decided that Captain Vicente de Zaldivar be sent against Acoma; that the inhabitants of that town must be forced to give up the arms of the murdered soldiers, to leave their peñol, and to settle on the plains; that the fortress must be burned; and that all who might resist must be captured and enslaved. Seventy brave men were selected for the

23 The fight took place on Dec. 4th. Acc. to Villagrá and N. Mex., Mem., 213, 223, the killed were 11, but only Spaniards were included. The list as given in the Ytin., 268, is as follows: Captains Diego Nuñez and Felipe de Escalante, Alf. Pereyra, Araujo, Juan Camacho, Martin Ramirez, Juan de Segura, Pedro Robledo, Martin de Riveros, Sebastian Rodriguez, two mozos, a mulatto, and an Indian, besides Capt. Juan de Zaldívar. The wounded were Leon Zapata, Juan de Olague, Cavanillas, and the alguacil real, Las Casas, who was struck twice with stones. If the no. of survivors is correctly indicated, Z. could not have taken 30 men as ordered.

MARCH AGAINST ACOMA.

143

service, under officers including captains Zubia, Romero, Aguilar, Farfan, Villagrá, and Marquez, Alférez Juan Cortés, and Juan Velarde as secretary. This army started on the 12th of January, 1599, and on the 21st arrived at Acoma, Villagrá with twelve men visiting Cia on the way for supplies. After Zaldívar's departure there seems to have been an alarm of threatened attack on San Juan, which, although it proved unfounded, gave our chronicler an opportunity to describe the preparations for defence, and to record the heroic offer of Doña Eufemia to lead the women to combat.

At Acoma the followers of Zutucapan were exultant, and succeeded in creating a popular belief that their past victory was but the prelude to a greater success which was to annihilate the invaders and free the whole country. Gicombo, a prominent chieftain who had neither taken part in nor approved the first attack, and had many misgivings for the future, called a general assembly of chiefs, to which were invited certain leaders not belonging to Acoma. It seems to have been tacitly understood that after what had happened war could not be averted, and all were ready for the struggle; but Gicombo, Zutancalpo, and Chumpo urged the necessity of removing women and children, and of other extraordinary precautions. Zutucapan and his party, however, ridiculed all fears, and boastingly proclaimed their ability to hold the peñol against the armies of the universe. When Zaldívar drew near, crowds of men and women were seen upon the walls dancing stark naked in an orgy of defiance and insult.

The sargento mayor, through Tomás the interpreter, sent the rulers of Acoma a summons to come down and answer for the murder they had done; but they only replied with taunts, while the Spaniards pitched their tents on the plain and prepared for an assault. There were two points at which the ascent could be effected; and the summit plateau was divided

by a ravine into two parts connected by a narrow pass. Zaldívar's strategy was to assault one of the peñoles with his main force, while a small and chosen party should hold themselves in readiness to scale the other. The night was spent in revelry by the natives; by the Spaniards in preparations and rest. On the morning of San Vicente, the 22d of January, the Indians began the battle by a discharge of arrows, and the Spanish leader sent what seemed to be his entire army to assault one of the entrances, where he soon concentrated the whole strength of the foe to oppose his ascent. Meanwhile, with twelve chosen men who had been concealed during the night, he mounted the other peñol, and gained the summit without serious resistance. The twelve were speedily reënforced, and all day long the battle raged fiercely, both at the pass between the two plateaux and at the entrance to that not yet gained.

For two days, and perhaps part of the third, the battle raged, and in five cantos of our epic are the details recounted of personal combats, desperate charges, individual acts of prowess on the part of Castilians and natives, religious services in the Christian camp, juntas and discussions and dissensions in the fortress on the cliff, the death-struggles of nearly all the Acoma chieftains and of several of Oñate's men, hair-breadth escapes of Villagrá and his comrades-details which may not be followed here, but in which the poet fairly revels. The Spanish loss seems to have been very small-perhaps only one man-and that of the natives very large, as was natural considering the difference in weapons and armor. Zutucapan's only chance of a successful resistance was lost when the invaders gained a footing on the plateau. It was only by desperate valor, by immense superiority of numbers, and by the advantages of defence offered by the summit pass, that the fated people were able to prolong the combat for three days. During the last day's battle the buildings of the pueblo

FALL OF THE PEÑOL PUEBLO.

145

were in flames, and hundreds killed each other in their desperation, or threw themselves down the cliff and perished rather than yield. Santiago or San Pablo was clearly seen by the natives during the conflict fighting for the Christians.

24

Finally, on the 24th the Spaniards gained full possession of the peñol pueblo, which they proceeded to destroy, at the same time slaughtering the inhabitants as a punishment for their sin of rebellion; though a remnant-600 in number, out of an estimated population of 6,000, under the venerable Chumpo, according to Villagrá-was permitted to surrender, and came down to settle on the plain. The pride and strength of the valiant Acomenses were broken forever; and it must have seemed hopeless for the other New Mexican communities to attempt what this cliff town, with all its natural advantages, had failed to accomplish. There is no record that any other pueblo became involved in open hostility to the Spaniards; indeed, of definite events for the rest of 1599 we have no record at all. With the fall of Acoma all the regular chronologic records end, including the Ytinerario and Villagra's epic. The poet promised his sovereign to continue the narration of New World adventures when the duties of his lance should give leisure to his pen; but so far as I know the opportunity never came.

24 The two authorities do not agree about the termination of the battle. Villagrá implies that it lasted three days, when Chumpo and his 600 survivors surrendered, after which the town was burned. The Ytin. seems to say that the fight lasted from the evening (prob. a misprint for morning) of the 22d to the evening of the 23d, when the foe surrendered; but the Span. did not occupy the pueblo till the 24th, when the surviving inhabitants made further resistance in their estufas and minas; whereupon 'hizose la matanza y castigo de los mas dellos, á fuego y sangre; y de todo punto se asoló y quemó el pueblo.' Oñate, Cop. Carta, 309, says Acoma had about 3,000 Indians 'al qual en castigo de su maldad y traicion....y para escarmiento á los demas, lo asolé y abrasé todo.' The description of Acoma, with its plateau divided by a ravine into two parts, does not agree with the present pueblo site, and adds to our doubt about the identity. It agrees much better with El Moro, or Inscription Rock; but the distance of 6 1. E. from the head of Zuñi Cr. in the Ytinerario, as well as the distances given in earlier narratives, seem to make this identification difficult. There may be a similar cliff farther east than El Moro and farther north than Acoma.

HIST. ARIZ. AND N. MEX. 10

CHAPTER VIII.

EIGHTY YEARS OF NEW MEXICAN ANNALS.

1599-1679.

A FRAGMENTARY RECORD-OÑATE'S LETTER-REENFORCEMENT-VICEROY'S REPORT A CONTROVERSY AT SAN JUAN-EXPEDITION TO QUIVIRA, 1601 -DESERTION OF COLONISTS AND FRIARS-ZALDÍVAR IN MEXICO AND SPAIN -RESULTS-OÑATE'S EXPEDITION TO THE SOUTH SEA, 1604-5—A NEW GOVERNOR, 1608-FOUNDING OF SANTA FÉ, 1605-16-PADRE Zárate de SALMERON-A CUSTODIA, 1621-NEW MISSIONARIES, 1628-9-GOVERNORS ZOTYLO AND SILVA-BENAVIDES' REPORT-LIST OF GOVERNORS, 1640-80 -EASTERN ENTRADAS-PADRE POSADAS' REPORT-INDIAN TROUBLES PADRES KILLED MURDER OF GOVERNOR ROSAS, 1642-CONTROVERSY AND DISASTER-PEÑALOSA'S RULE AND FICTITIOUS TRIP TO QUIVIRA, 1662-APACHE RAIDS-AYETA'S APPEALS-AID THAT CAME TOO LATE.

THE history of this province, from the fall of Acoma in 1599 to the great revolt of 1680, can never be made complete, for lack of data. The home archives were destroyed in the revolt, and we must depend on such fragments as found their way out into the world before that outbreak. I can do no more than simply bring together in this chapter more of these fragments than have ever been presented before. There were several writers of the period-notably Salmeron, Benavides, and Posadas-who might have left a satisfactory record, at least in the aggregate; but unfortunately the past and future had more charms for them than the present, and New Mexico less than the halfmythic regions beyond.

On the 2d of March, 1599, the governor wrote to the viceroy an outline record of what he had accomplished, painting in bright colors the land he had conquered,

( 146 )